Big Idea: A selfish Christian is out of step with Christ and irrelevant to their city!
The Church is…part of a community, called out from sin and into transparent relationships for the purpose of making Jesus famous in their city.
I. The Gospel is social as well as personal. Dr. King
Job 29:13-17
The dying blessed me, and I made the widow’s heart rejoice. I clothed myself in righteousness, and it enveloped me; my just decisions were like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I examined the case of the stranger. I shattered the fangs of the unjust and snatched the prey from his teeth.
II. "When people say, ‘I want to engage culture,’ sometimes I want to say, ‘Guess what, too late, culture has already engaged you. You are soaking in it.’ To pretend that you are outside of it and that it’s something that you can sort of bomb in and engage piously and triumphantly is maybe not going to get you much of a hearing with people who are a part of culture." Dr. Thornbury
Acts 17:22-28
Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
III. "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" Dr. King
1 Peter 4:8-11
Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God. If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
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